Method and blank for making potentiometer contact springs |
|||||||
| 申请号 | US3579822D | 申请日 | 1968-05-13 | 公开(公告)号 | US3579822A | 公开(公告)日 | 1971-05-25 |
| 申请人 | FRANK L DIETERICH; | 发明人 | DIETERICH FRANK L; | ||||
| 摘要 | A method of manufacturing miniature potentiometer contact springs by winding a substantial length coil of a single layer of fine, heat-treatable precious metal alloy wire on a generally cylindrical form, masking spaced strips longitudinally of the wire coil, silver plating the wire coil between the masked strips, removing the strips and cutting the strip-plated wire band from the mandrel as a sheet, cutting the wire sheet in the middle of the plated and unplated strips to produce control strip blanks having short free wires at one end and joined plated wires at the other end. The free ends of the wires in the blank are then formed into radiused points of contact, and the blank heattreated to develop hardness, wear resistance and spring characteristics in the wire fingers. This blank may itself form an article of commerce with the customer (or the original manufacturer) slicing the strip blank into the desired contact widths, forming the plating bonded portion, if desired, and attaching it to a support. The wire may be wound on a solid mandrel and the coil plated only on its outer surface or on a slotted mandrel and the coil plated on both inside and outside surfaces at the slots. | ||||||
| 权利要求 | 1. The method of forming a spring contact including the steps of: winding a single layer coil of wire on a form; applying nonconducting mask to said coil except for longitudinally extending, circumferentially spaced bare strips thereof; plating continuous strips of high-conductivity metal on said bare strips of said coil; removing the mask from said coil; cutting said coil longitudinally and removing it from the form in the form of the sheet; cutting said sheet on lines bisecting both said plated and unplated strips to form contact strip blanks comprising a plurality of side-by-side wire fingers free at one end and joined at the other end in a continuous bonded strip by said plating; and further the steps in a desired order of forming the free ends of said wire fingers to provide radius points of contacts thereon; heat-treating said fingers to provide spring characteristics therefor; and slicing said strip blank parallel to said wire fingers into individual contacts of the desired width. 2. The method defined in claim 1 including: forming the plated portion of said individual contact to the desired shape and mounting said plated portion to a support. 3. The method defined in claim 1 in which said form is provided with slots therethrough exposing the interior surface of the coil thereat: applying the mask to the exterior surface of the coil at the bridging portions of the form only so as to expose both sides of the coil at longitudinally extending, circumferentially spaced strips; and plating said coil with a highly conductive metal both interiorly and exteriorly of said coil so as to provide continuous plated strips on both the inside and outsides of the coil extending longitudinally of the coil and spaced circumferentially thereof. 4. A method of forming a spring contact including the steps of: forming a single layer coil of bare conductive wire; plating adjacent inner and outer strips of said coil in the form of continuous longitudinally extending, circumferentially spaced plated strips of conducting metal separated by unplated longitudinally extending interior and exterior strips of said coil; cutting said coil on lines bisecting both the plated and unplated strips thereof to form contact strip blanks comprising a plurality of side-by-side wire fingers free at one end and joined at the other end by a continuous plated strip on both sides of the wire; and the further steps in a desired order of forming the free ends of said wire fingers to provide radius points of contact thereat, cutting said strip blanks parallel to said wire fingers into individual contacts of the desired width, and heat-treating the wire fingers to provide spring characteristics thereto. |
||||||
| 说明书全文 | |||||||
QQ群二维码
意见反馈
意见反馈